


Stay

by MaddyBaby



Series: Superhero BTS [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Marvel Cinematic Universe Fusion, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, BAMF Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, BAMF Min Yoongi | Suga, Blind Character, Blind Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Description of minor medical procedures, Disabled Character, Explicit Language, Gen, Hoseok is Daredevil, Hurt Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, M/M, Mild torture, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:07:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25807867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddyBaby/pseuds/MaddyBaby
Summary: “You’ve got multiple broken ribs, maybe a concussion, and a stab wound. I don’t recommend moving much at all,” Yoongi advises. The man’s face is scrunched up in obvious discomfort. “Also, your eyes aren’t responding to light, and you're not freaking out about it. So either you’re blind, or in way worse shape than I thought.”A smirk dances across the man’s lips, but it’s weak. “Do I have to pick just one?”
Relationships: Jung Hoseok | J-Hope & Min Yoongi | Suga, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Min Yoongi | Suga
Series: Superhero BTS [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808743
Comments: 19
Kudos: 93
Collections: SOPE WEEK 2020





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by the song “Stay” by The Score.
> 
> This fic is for Sope Week 2020, Day 1: Connections. It is heavily inspired by the Netflix Original Marvel TV show _Daredevil_. For those of you who have seen it, you will recognize that this fic very closely follows the plot line of season 1 episode 2, “Cut Man”.

A desperate pounding on his apartment door startles Yoongi awake. His eyes shoot open, and it takes several seconds for him to get his bearings. At first, he doesn’t know what caused him to wake up. It is still dark outside; beams of moonlight filter through the cracks in his window curtains. He turns to his alarm clock, squinting at the glowing red numbers. 

**1:07**

The banging on his front door continues with more urgence, and Yoongi groans. Who the hell could need him right _now_ of all times? Standing, Yoongi pulls on a t-shirt and a pair of sweats, heading to the living area of his apartment. He wipes the sleep from his eyes as he unlocks his front door, and pulls it open. On the other side of the door is his neighbor, Kai Huening, who lives a floor above Yoongi. When Yoongi registers the raw terror in Kai’s youthful eyes, all of his previous fatigue vanishes. 

The boy’s fist is frozen midair like he was about to keep knocking. Tears shine in his eyes and reflect the poor hallway lighting. 

“What’s wrong?” Yoongi asks in Korean, trying not to spook the younger boy. 

Kai opens his mouth to respond, his eyes shifting around the hallway. He shakes his head after a moment, then motions for Yoongi to follow him while running off to the stairway. Yoongi curses under his breath, but shoves his feet into a pair of sneakers before rushing after Kai. He is led down to the bottom floor and out the back, into the alley where the apartment complex’s dumpster is located. 

It is drizzling outside, and the flickering street lamps bathe the alleyway in a dim yellow light. Yoongi scrunches up his nose at the smell of wet garbage, trailing behind Kai as the boy leads him further into the alley. There are tiny puddles of dark liquid forming a messy line all the way up to the dumpster. Not water, Yoongi realizes, dread settling within him. Blood. A full trash bag lays abandoned on the rain-slicked asphalt in front of the bin, but that barely catches Yoongi’s attention once he looks inside it. 

“I-I forgot to take out the trash earlier, so I went to do it just now and-and he was just there!” Kai hiccups, speaking for the first time all night, also in Korean. His hands clench and unclench nervously. 

There is an unconscious man’s body in the dumpster. He is dressed in all black, including a black cloth that is wrapped around the upper half of his face. Blood covers his neck, but his throat doesn’t look to be cut. The masked man’s chest rises and falls erratically. Yoongi stares down at the masked man for a moment, then glances around the alley. It’s empty of people except for himself, Kai, and the man in the dumpster. 

_Call the cops, Yoongi,_ his conscience urges. _You don’t want to get involved in this._

He wants to listen to the logical side of himself, but the emotional side reminds him of all the stories that have been circulating around Hell’s Kitchen lately. Of a group of high schoolers that had been reported missing a month ago that showed up at the police station a few days later, saying they were saved from a human trafficking transport by a man in the shadows. Of the woman that came into the hospital with minor injuries during Yoongi’s shift last week, talking about a masked man dressed in black that saved her from being attacked that night. 

“Help me get him out, we’ll take him to my apartment,” Yoongi orders Kai, and the boy nods. It’s obvious that he’s still scared, but he trusts Yoongi. 

Kai and his mother moved to Hell’s Kitchen from Korea about two years ago. The boy had been only sixteen at the time, and his mother was barely making ends meet. Yoongi was the only other Korean in their apartment complex, and it was obvious to him that Kai was having a hard time learning English in class. Bullies would often make fun of his accent and rough him up on his way to and from school. Yoongi took pity on the kid, offering to treat Kai’s cuts and bruises. At the same time, Yoongi would help Kai with his English assignments. They developed a brotherly friendship over time. 

Somehow, this is where that relationship has led them.

Leaning into the dumpster, Yoongi reaches under the masked man’s arms. Kai grasps the man’s legs, and on the count of three they lift him out. The whole maneuver is awkward and mostly uncoordinated, but the two of them manage to get the masked man up to Yoongi’s apartment. He doesn’t stir once. When they’re inside, they gently ease the man onto the wooden flooring, Yoongi cradling his head. Blood has leaked onto Yoongi’s hands and t-shirt by now, but he doesn’t have time to focus on that. 

“Okay, go upstairs and lock the door. Don’t say anything about this to anyone,” Yoongi tells Kai, ushering the boy out of the apartment. Kai does as Yoongi says, casting one more worried glance at the masked man before he goes. 

Yoongi shuts his door as quietly as possible, locking it and shifting the security chain into place for good measure. Then he gets to work examining the masked man who is now bleeding all over the floor. He retrieves his bulky first aid kit from the coat closet, kneeling down before his patient. He pulls on latex gloves, observing the most obvious of the masked man’s injuries. The man’s dark clothing makes it more difficult to see where he is bleeding from, but there are some places in his long sleeved shirt where the material has been sliced open. What looks like a knife wound bleeds sluggishly from the man’s upper left arm, but it doesn’t look too severe. Yoongi is much more troubled by the deep laceration on the man’s right side, which seems to be the main source of most of his blood loss. 

Yoongi presses two fingers against the man’s throat, feeling for a pulse. It’s there, but the heartbeat is too fast. He instinctively reaches for a penlight to check the man’s pupil response, but freezes before he pulls up the mask. Obviously, this man is hiding his identity for a reason. Vigilantism isn’t exactly legal in New York, especially not at the degree of violence that he is going to, if the rumors are accurate. But Yoongi is an ER nurse first and foremost, so he can’t just skip an integral step in his patient evaluation just because this stranger might get upset about revealing his face. 

Mind made up, Yoongi pulls the mask up to the man’s forehead. He is greeted with a handsome face. The man is Asian, and his expression is slack in his unconscious state. He has long eyelashes, along with a narrow nose that slopes into a slight point at the tip. His bottom lip has been split open thinly, but nonetheless his mouth is in the shape of a heart. His jaw is ridiculously chiseled. If he wasn’t covered in blood and grime, maybe Yoongi would be able take a moment to appreciate the man’s attractiveness. But he can’t.

Clicking on the penlight, Yoongi gently pries open one of the man’s eyelids. He runs the light over his eyes. No pupil response. Frowning, he repeats the process with the man’s other eye. Still nothing. _This is bad. This is really bad,_ Yoongi thinks as he releases the man’s eyelid. He eases the mask the rest of the way off, so it dangles around the man’s neck. 

The man’s dark brown hair is matted with blood, which has dripped all the way down the side of his face and onto his neck. Yoongi feels around with his fingers along the back of the man’s head for any dips in his skull, but doesn’t find any fractures. That doesn’t make sense. If he doesn’t have any skull fractures, then why aren’t his eyes reacting to light? Unless… maybe the man was already blind. Yoongi sits there for a moment, his brain trying to catch up with everything he sees. 

He is in way over his head. This man needs more than the basic first aid that a nurse can provide. He needs x-rays to scan for internal bleeding and bone fractures, and maybe even surgery. Yoongi exhales, then grabs his cellphone off of the coffee table. He dials 9-1-1 with some hesitation, putting the phone to his ear as it rings. 

The unconscious man’s arm suddenly shoots up, latching onto Yoongi’s wrist. His eyes are wide open, now, but still unfocused and blank. Yoongi bites back a scream and the man forces his phone away from his ear. 

“No, no calls,” the man breathes, in English, grip tight around Yoongi’s wrist. 

“It’s okay, I’m trying to help you. You’re really injured and need medical attention,” Yoongi tries to reassure, wiggling his arm in an attempt to free himself from the man’s hold. It doesn’t work.

“No. I need to leave,” the man argues, his words strained. “I need to stop them.” 

“Who?” Yoongi questions. He hangs up his phone reluctantly, and only then does the man release his arm.

The man ignores Yoongi, struggling to roll onto his side and push himself up. He cries out in pain through gritted teeth, but somehow manages to stand. Yoongi rises with him, bracing his own hands around the man’s body just in case he falls. 

“You really shouldn’t be standing, Sir. You’ve lost a lot of blood, please let me help you!” Yoongi’s protests fall on deaf ears as the man stumbles a few steps forward, clutching his right side. 

He doesn’t make it far, though. The man walks about three feet before he collapses and falls flat on his face. Yoongi tries to catch him, but ultimately isn’t fast enough. The man’s cheek scrunches up against the wooden flooring, and his eyes flutter before falling shut completely. He’s unconscious. Again. Yoongi stands there in shock for a moment, staring down at the bloodied man with wide eyes. 

_What the hell just happened?_ And to think, this was supposed to be his night off from work. 

Yoongi is able to drag the man’s unconscious form onto his couch, then sits on the coffee table in order to better treat the man’s wounds. Streaks of blood are starting to dry on his floor, and his couch is going to need to be replaced after all of this is over. He doesn’t mind the latter too much, the couch is an ugly green that doesn’t match anything, and it lost its comfortable cushioning years ago. Nonetheless, it’s really not a good look for him to have blood stains and an unresponsive body in his apartment. 

Upon further inspection of the man’s condition, Yoongi finds that his shallow breaths are most likely due to a few broken ribs. The nurse cleans up the majority of blood from the man’s injuries, but his skin is still tinted a bit red. It’s almost like he bathed in Kool-Aid, if Yoongi pretends he doesn’t know any better. He stitches up the wounds on the man’s arm and side, then dresses the lacerations in large gauze pads just in case they start to bleed again. 

Once he’s finished, Yoongi leans back and decides to just wait for the man to awaken. After twenty minutes pass, his eyes start to droop closed. At the one hour mark, the man gasps and his eyes fly open, startling Yoongi out of his dozing state. 

“Where am I?” the man asks, eyes flicking around the room, but never quite focusing on anything. 

“You’re in my apartment,” Yoongi deadpans. The man’s head tilts in Yoongi’s direction at the sound of his voice, but he doesn’t meet Yoongi’s eyes. Instead, his gaze falls somewhere right above Yoongi’s shoulder. 

“Who are you?” 

Yoongi sighs, contemplating how much he should share. He settles on saying, “I’m the guy that pulled you out of the dumpster, and saved you from bleeding out on my couch.”

The man moves his hands to his face, probably searching for his mask. When he realizes its absence, he huffs and closes his eyes briefly in resignation. “You’ve seen my face.” It’s not a question. “Great.” 

His attitude sends a flash of irritation through Yoongi. The nurse usually prides himself on his bedside manner, but he has no reason to just let this stranger mistreat him. If the man can dish it out, then he can take it, too.

“Yeah, I did. Your outfit sucks, by the way,” Yoongi tells him. 

The man tries to push himself up onto his elbows, but exclaims in pain at the motion. Yoongi carefully but assertively pushes him back down into a horizontal position. 

“You’ve got multiple broken ribs, maybe a concussion, and a stab wound. I don’t recommend moving much at all,” Yoongi advises. The man’s face is scrunched up in obvious discomfort. “Also, your eyes aren’t responding to light, and you're not freaking out about it. So either you’re blind, or in way worse shape than I thought.” 

A smirk dances across the man’s lips, but it’s weak. “Do I have to pick just one?” he quips. 

Okay. That sends Yoongi’s mind racing with questions, the most prominent ones being _what the fuck is going on?_ and _how is this even possible?_

“You wanna tell me how the hell a blind man in a mask winds up half dead in my dumpster?” Yoongi snaps. 

The man winces. “The less you know about me, the better,” he replies mysteriously.

Yoongi rolls his eyes. He pulls up the man’s ruined shirt to inspect his bandages, and the man flinches. “I think I stopped the bleeding, but I can’t be sure there isn’t any internal damage. You need to go to a hospital.” 

The man is shaking his head before Yoongi can even finish speaking. “No, no hospitals,” he says. 

Sighing heavily, Yoongi looks up at the ceiling and sends a few choice words up to whoever might be listening. “Look, this is my night off. I’m gonna be really pissed if it ends up with some guy dying on my couch.” 

“What, are you a doctor?” the man asks. 

“Close enough to one to know that you shouldn’t even be functioning right now, ” Yoongi replies dryly. 

The two of them sit in silence for a few moments in some kind of a glaring contest (though how Yoongi can do that with a blind man, he doesn’t know), both too stubborn to budge. Finally, the man whispers, “Why are you helping me?”

Sighing, Yoongi looks away. It’s a fair question. Still, Yoongi isn’t in the mood to be so forthcoming. “The less you know about me, the better,” he repeats the man’s earlier words. 

The man laughs once, seemingly without meaning to. Then he groans, shifting in an attempt to alleviate the pain of his broken ribs. 

“You got a name?” he asks Yoongi through a grimace. 

Yoongi contemplates his answer. He could give a fake name, but what’s the point really? The man already knows where he lives, probably, using whatever abilities he must have to get around despite his lack of sight. And if he tries to attack Yoongi, maybe the nurse can use his injuries against him. Whatever. 

“Yoongi.” 

When the man doesn’t offer up his own name, Yoongi huffs. “Are you gonna give me yours?” 

The man smirks a little. It looks good on him, but right now it just pisses Yoongi off. “You can call me Jay,” the man responds. 

It’s obviously not his real name, but Yoongi isn’t going to be choosy right now. “Good answer. If you hadn’t responded, I was gonna start calling you George.” 

“ _George_?” Jay asks in disbelief. His face twists like the name bothers him deeply. Yoongi feels the same way. 

“Yeah, he was an ex of mine. He was pretty good at keeping secrets, too,” Yoongi explains. 

Not knowing what else to say, Yoongi starts cleaning up. There are used disinfectant wipes, latex gloves, and bloody stitching needles strewn about on the coffee table. He gathers them up and moves to stand and go toss them, but Jay gently puts a gloved hand on his arm and stops him in his tracks. 

“Thank you, Yoongi,” Jay says sincerely. 

Yoongi’s stomach flips at the sudden vulnerability in Jay’s expression. He’s not a bad guy, Yoongi knows. Maybe a little standoffish, but not bad. If he was, then he probably would have tried to hurt Yoongi by now, right? 

“You need to rest. I can’t have you reopening your stitches right now. We’ll figure the other stuff out later.” 

Jay nods his assent, closing his eyes and relaxing as much as possible. Yoongi gets up and throws out the used medical materials, then heads into his bedroom to change his bloodied shirt. Should he risk washing his clothes in the complex’s laundry room? Maybe he should just burn the clothing in his trash can out on the fire escape. He’s seen people do that in movies before. Those people are usually the murderers, though, so that’s probably not a good move in this case. Cleaning it as much as possible in his own apartment seems like the best decision, so Yoongi fills his bathroom sink up with warm water, then submerges his shirt to let it soak. 

After he has changed into a new shirt, he gets some cleaning supplies and a washcloth out of his closet. As he is wiping up Jay’s blood from the floor, the anxiety finally hits him. There is a heavily injured vigilante passed out on his couch, and he was probably beat up by some really bad people. Yoongi is wiping up blood, and thus getting rid of evidence that could be useful to a criminal investigation. If the police were to come in right now, he would be in a very damning situation. Maybe he should start looking into some defense lawyers. 

At around three a.m., Yoongi winds up sitting at his tiny kitchen table, glaring at an unopened bottle of beer and reconsidering his life choices. He should just go to sleep, and when he wakes up Jay will be gone, having snuck out before morning. Or maybe he will still be on the couch, and Yoongi can offer to make him breakfast. 

Jay suddenly shoots awake, gasping and choking for breath. The vigilante’s muscles coil tight as he wheezes and sputters. His mouth gapes, desperately trying to draw in oxygen. Yoongi rushes over to him. 

“What’s wrong?” he demands, his hands hovering over Jay’s form. 

Through strangled gasps, Jay manages to say, “I...can’t...breathe.” 

Shit. Yoongi tears open his medical bag that still rests on the coffee table, trying to move quickly without fumbling with the equipment. He yanks a stethoscope out, then sticks the eartips into his ears and places the drum on Jay’s chest. He moves the drum around, listening for any indication as to why Jay can’t breathe properly. Jay’s heartbeat is rapid, but his skin isn’t turning blue. Yet. 

“You’ve got air in your chest. It’s collapsing your lung,” Yoongi explains quickly, pulling back the stethoscope and digging around in his medical bag once again.

He puts on fresh latex gloves before taking out a bottle of antiseptic from his bag. Then, he tugs down the neckline of Jay’s shirt, squirting the liquid onto his bare chest and dabbing at it with a cloth. “I’m gonna remove the pressure, but it’ll hurt. Hold still, okay?” 

Retrieving a thin bore needle, Yoongi briefly wonders if Jay has trypanophobia. Immediately after that, he thinks _why do you care?_ and uncaps then injects the syringe into the right side of Jay’s chest. Jay grunts in pain, clenching his teeth. Yoongi extracts the plunger from the barrel of the syringe, and the pieces separate with an audible _pop!_ Air hisses out of the now empty barrel as Jay’s chest decompresses, and his taut muscles relax. 

Jay says nothing for a full minute, just taking deep gulps of air now that he can finally breathe. He clutches at his injured ribs, but doesn’t try to take any shallow breaths. Yoongi leans back and sits, trying to get his own rapid heartbeat under control. One more scare and he is going to go into cardiac arrest. He swiftly removes the needle from Jay’s chest, leaving the catheter so air can continue to flow properly. 

“Alright,” Yoongi says. He places the stethoscope ear tips back in his ears, and listens to Jay’s lungs. “Just breathe normally.”

Eventually, Jay stops taking such deep inhales, and his breathing calms. He stares unseeingly straight ahead, probably still too full of adrenaline from his near death experience (how many times has he had one of those today?) to fall back asleep. That’s fine. Yoongi needs to have a talk with him anyway. 

“Okay, listen. I say you need to go to a hospital, but you say no because you’re some broody martyr or whatever. So if you’re gonna stay here, we need to talk about what’s gonna happen if you die here in my living room,” Yoongi says, distress leaking into his tone. “‘Cause I’ve been thinking about what story I’m gonna give to the police and every version ends up with me in handcuffs.” 

Yoongi gives Jay his most disapproving-but-concerned look, hoping that the blind vigilante can somehow sense it. “Convince me that it’s worth it.” 

Jay says nothing, at first. His expression displays conflicted emotions. “I was going after the Russians,” he admits, and wow is that surreal. Yoongi feels like that should be a line in a cliche action movie, if it isn’t already. “They’ve been running a human trafficking ring out of Hell’s Kitchen, and they kidnapped a little boy two days ago. I knew the kid would still be alive, at least until they took him out of the city.” 

As he retells his story, Yoongi feels increasingly ill. He doesn’t know what disturbs him most: the fact that something so horrible could happen right under his nose, or the fact that Jay explains it with a cool, even tone. The man doesn’t seem at all affected by the kidnapping. 

“I tracked the Russians down to a warehouse nearby,” Jay continues. He smiles a self-deprecating grin. “I thought I was being so smart with how fast I found them.” 

Realization settles over Yoongi. “It was a trap,” he wonders out loud. Jay nods. “So, what? They took this boy just to lure you in? Why?” 

“Their business has been... _suffering_ because of me. I keep intervening during their shipments out of the Hudson. They probably thought to kill two birds with one stone, get rid of me and gain new merchandise at the same time,” Jay explains. 

“Is this what you do every night? You get into fights with bad men and try to foil their evil plans?” Yoongi asks dryly. 

Jay forgoes an answer, shrugging instead. 

“Well, no offense, but you’re not very good at it if this is the end result.”

At that, Jay turns his head in the direction of Yoongi’s voice, trying his best to scowl at him. It looks like more of a pout, in Yoongi’s opinion, but that could have something to do with the lack of a mask. Also, he doesn’t seem as intimidating to Yoongi, given that the nurse has been essentially coddling him all night. 

“I’m having an off night,” Jay insists.

Yoongi scoffs, but then he frowns. “Did you at least find the kid?” 

Jay closes his eyes somberly, shaking his head. 

Crossing his arms, Yoongi feels a mixture of anger and despair. He knows that terrible things happen in the world, hell he became a nurse so he could at least try to make a difference. But the reality is that Yoongi can only help those that come into the hospital to be helped in the first place. Instances like this, where a criminal organization steals children from right under peoples’ noses, well, Yoongi is sure that Jay is in the same hopeless boat as he is. The police clearly aren’t doing much of anything to stop it; it feels like every day a new missing person poster pops up on this city’s streets. No wonder Jay risks his own life every night to put a stop to it. It’s admirable, really. 

Yoongi opens his mouth to speak, but at that moment Jay’s eyes fly open, and he shushes the nurse. The two men freeze, Yoongi out of confusion and Jay out of attentiveness. 

“Someone’s coming,” Jay whispers. 

“What?” Yoongi asks, brows furrowing. 

“There’s a man in the building, he’s going door to door,” Jay explains quickly, propping himself up into a semi-sitting position. 

“How do you know that?” 

Jay shushes him again, listening to something that Yoongi can’t hear. “He’s on the floor below us. He smells like Marlboro cigarettes and really expensive cologne.” 

His jaw stiffens as he heaves himself off of the couch. He cradles his ribs as he limps to the kitchen, and Yoongi follows him apprehensively. Yoongi wants to point out that Jay shouldn’t be walking right now, given all of his injuries. But he knows that the vigilante won’t heed his advice. 

Instead, he asks, “How can you smell someone from a floor below us?” 

“There are some things I haven’t told you about me, Yoongi,” Jay replies.

“You haven’t told me _anything_ about you,” Yoongi points out. 

Jay huffs out a laugh, running his free hand along the side of the kitchen counter for a drawer handle. He finds one easily, and pulls the drawer open before rummaging around the contents. Apparently, he doesn’t find what he needs, because he slams it shut and pulls open the drawer right next to it. Yoongi just watches in silence, until Jay turns around with a sharp paring knife in his hand. The blade glistens from the light shining above the sink, and a cold fear races through Yoongi.

Is this it? Is this the part where he gets gutted in his own apartment by an injured vigilante that he had stupidly decided to help out of the kindness in his heart? Yoongi has never liked horror movies much, he’s always thought that the characters were idiots who made the most unrealistic and ridiculous decisions, and that’s why they always wound up dead. Yet, here he is, about to get murdered, and all because of the stupid choices he made all by himself.

“What are you gonna do with that?” Yoongi asks skeptically. It might be a useless gesture against a knife wielding man experienced in beating people up, but Yoongi puts up his fists defensively and gets into a fighting stance. If he’s about to get killed, he isn’t going to go down willingly. 

Jay rolls his eyes, and Yoongi feels like he’s just embarrassed himself somehow. “Relax. This isn’t for you,” Jay says. “He’s at your neighbor’s door.” 

Jay gestures to the door with his knife-wielding hand, and pulls his mask over his hair from where it has been hanging around his neck for most of the night. As he limps over to the front door, Yoongi decides to step in. 

“Jay, you can barely stand up!” Yoongi steps in front of the vigilante, forcing him to stop his advance. 

“That’s what the knife is for,” Jay says, like it’s obvious. 

“Let’s not stab first and ask questions later, okay? Let me handle this.” 

Jay looks like he is going to argue, but a pointed knock at the door interrupts him. He starts onward, but Yoongi pushes back on his shoulders. 

“Please,” Yoongi whispers. 

Another knock. “Who is it?” Yoongi calls out. 

“NYPD, Sir. Please open the door,” A man’s voice sounds from behind the door, his accent suggesting that he is from Brooklyn. 

Jay hesitates, but blessedly nods in agreement. Yoongi guides him to stand off to the side, out of sight of the door. The vigilante tugs his mask down to cover his upper face completely, then waits with tensed muscles. His hand is wrapped firmly around the knife’s handle, ready to attack at a moment’s notice. Yoongi takes it all back. He is intimidating as fuck. 

“Just a minute!” Yoongi calls. He retrieves a blanket from the arm of the couch and covers the blood stained cushions, then yanks off his gloves and throws them to the side. Feeling infinitely grateful for his foresight to clean up the blood on the floor and to change his shirt earlier, Yoongi opens the door and pastes what he hopes is an unassuming expression on his face. 

The security chain is still latched on the door, so it only opens a few inches. Still, it allows Yoongi more than enough space to see his visitor. The man is white, his blonde hair is slicked back, and he is wearing a nice charcoal colored suit paired with a tie. He holds up a police badge for Yoongi to see, then tucks it away into his suit jacket pocket once the nurse nods in acknowledgement. 

“Sorry to bother you at this hour, Sir. I’m Detective Smith, with the sixty-fifth precinct. We had a bit of a disturbance a few blocks from here, and we’re asking everyone if they’ve seen or heard anything unusual in the past few hours,” explains the officer. Detective Smith. 

Keeping his expression neutral, Yoongi asks, “What kind of disturbance?” 

“Armed robbery. A man in a mask was reported to have shot up a bodega on thirty-eighth.” Yoongi knows that isn’t true, but listens in curiosity as if he doesn’t know any better. “The owner put up a fight, and the perp fled on foot. He left a trail of blood in this direction.” 

“Wow, that’s crazy,” Yoongi says lamely, and mentally face palms. Who reacts to a crime like that? Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

“He’s probably long gone by now, but we have to ask just in case, you know?” Detective Smith assures. Yoongi nods in agreement. “Have you seen or heard anything strange tonight?” 

“Um, no. Sorry,” Yoongi lies, and the knowledge of Jay’s presence a mere five feet away makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. 

“Just being thorough. You have a good night, Sir.” Just like that, Detective Smith nods politely and walks down the hall. 

Yoongi watches him go, then closes the door softly, locking it once more. “See? No reason to get all stabby,” he says quietly to Jay. 

The vigilante doesn’t look relieved, like Yoongi had expected him to. He pushes off the wall and makes a beeline to the front door. “He didn’t believe you,” Jay says bluntly. 

He opens the door and stumbles into the vacated hallway. With the hand that has been cradling his ribs all night, Jay grabs a fire extinguisher off of its hook that is fastened to the wall. He heads over to the stairway, then grips the handle of the fire extinguisher tightly and heaves it over the railing. He waits calculatingly. Yoongi chases after him, whisper-screaming his name. 

Yoongi leans over the railing, staring down into the dizzying maze of winding stairs that lead all the way down to the ground floor. He sees Detective Smith hurriedly descending the stairs, a phone pressed to his ear. The detective is speaking in perfect Russian to whoever is on the line. 

“What are you doing?” Yoongi asks. 

Jay says nothing, focusing instead on Detective Smith’s voice. The fire extinguisher sways lightly in his hold. Right as the detective reaches the bottom floor, beginning to cross the tile to exit the complex, Jay lets go of the fire extinguisher. It sails straight down, colliding with Detective Smith’s head with an echoing, metallic clang. The detective goes down, and Yoongi’s jaw drops in horror as a puddle of blood starts to pool around the man’s head. 

Jay falls back against the wall, exhausted and groaning in pain. Yoongi looks at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. “What are we gonna do now?” Yoongi demands. Jay pushes him back against the wall in alarm, tilting his chin up. Yoongi is starting to recognize these head movements as the man’s ‘listening’ pose. 

“There’s someone watching us from one floor up,” Jay whispers. “Oh no, he’s young, he’s scared.” 

Yoongi’s stomach twists with dread, because he has a feeling that he knows exactly who Jay is talking about. He peaks over the ledge to look above him, and is greeted with Kai’s youthful, petrified face. He is standing at the top of the stairs between their two floors, his eyes Bambi-like. 

“Kai,” Yoongi croons, but the boy immediately ducks out of sight without a word, and the slam of a door shutting follows. 

Sighing, Yoongi backs up and looks to Jay, who is facing in his direction. “Kai found you in the alley and got me to help you,” Yoongi admits. 

“Has he seen my face, too?” Jay asks tersely. 

“No. I didn’t take off your mask until we were alone.” 

The vigilante tilts his head down, breathing for a moment before he tucks the paring knife away into a pocket of his pants, pushes off the wall, and starts walking to the stairs. “Go upstairs and get him. We’re going to need help carrying _Detective Smith_ to the roof.” 

It is at this point in the night, when the three of them are dragging the unconscious Detective Smith up to the apartment complex roof, that Yoongi is very thankful for his cheap landlord’s refusal to get working security cameras set up in the building. The ones they have now are purely for decoration, and aren’t even connected to a power source. Once they get up to the roof, Jay instructs Yoongi and Kai to prop the detective up against some scaffolding. He tosses Yoongi a long bundle of coarse rope (where did he even _get_ that? Yoongi thinks he is better off not asking.) 

The lighting on the roof is scarce. The moon is full, but it keeps ducking behind shadowy clouds. The only other light comes from street lamps and illuminated windows from the city surrounding them. The rain has stopped now, but the scent of it still lingers heavily in the air. Goosebumps rise along Yoongi’s bare arms from the chilly breeze, and he regrets not putting on a jacket before coming up here.

Jay walks off, and Kai uses this opportunity to ask questions. “Did that guy just kill a cop?” the boy mutters. 

Yoongi is about to reassure him when Jay, who is across the rooftop, his back facing the two others, replies in perfect Korean, “No, but he’s gonna have one hell of a headache when he wakes up.” 

Kai and Yoongi turn to him with shock on both of their faces. Kai turns beat red in embarrassment from being caught trying to talk behind the vigilante’s back. He doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, instead focusing all of his attention on helping Yoongi string up the detective by the man’s wrists. 

“Do you need me, still? Or can I go back to my apartment?” Kai asks timidly once the detective is tied up. 

“You can go. Don’t tell anyone about this,” Jay tells the boy. Kai nods and then speed walks to the roof entrance door. His shoulders are tense as he leaves Yoongi and Jay alone, but he doesn’t turn back. 

Once he is sure that Kai isn’t coming back up, Yoongi asks in English, “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, he had a badge.” 

“It was fake. He knows something,” Jay responds confidently. 

“What if you’re wrong?” 

“I’m not.” Jay is still looking out at the city. Yoongi wonders what he gets out of the action. 

“How do you know?” When Jay doesn’t reply, the nurse frowns in annoyance and mumbles to himself, “This is not what I signed up for.”

That gets Jay to turn around, finally. “What exactly did you think you were signing up for, then?” he snarks. 

“I’m a nurse. I see someone that needs help and I help them,” Yoongi says. His hands are starting to shake with nerves. He tucks them under his arms and tries to pass it off as hugging himself from the brisk air. 

“Really? It’s that simple?” 

They really aren’t in an environment that can allow them to speak freely. Detective Smith, or whatever his real name might be, could wake up at any moment. Maybe Yoongi should go get one of his medical masks to hide his face. He marches closer to Jay. 

“Do you really want to get into this in front of him?” he glances back at the unconscious man, but isn’t sure if the gesture is lost on Jay.

“He’s out,” Jay replies shortly. 

Yoongi has feigned sleep countless of times before. He knows how to even out his breathing and relax his muscles to seem as convincing as possible. He is sure that other people know that trick, too. “Maybe he’s faking.” 

Jay tilts his head in that listening way of his. After a beat, he says, “He’s not.” 

Exclaiming wordlessly in frustration, Yoongi points a finger accusingly at Jay. “That is exactly what I’m talking about! I find an unconscious bleeding guy and he turns out to be some blind vigilante that can do some really weird shit! Like smell someone’s cologne through walls, and tell if a person is faking unconsciousness or not!” 

Jay shrugs in an unbothered way. “If you’re that freaked out, why are you helping me?” 

Yoongi sighs. He runs a hand down his face wearily. “I’ve heard about you. Seen first hand what you do to criminals out there and how hard you fight for people that need help. Word is getting around, and I don’t want to be the person responsible for putting an end to it.” Traitorous emotions start to well up in his throat, and his eyes burn. He swallows the tears down, not about to lose it over this. “I want to believe in what you’re doing, I really do. But this isn’t it.” 

It is impossible for Yoongi to gauge Jay’s reaction with his jaw clenched and upper face covered. His posture is stiff, but it is unclear whether he is uncomfortable from the conversation, or if his injuries are flaring up. Jay pushes off from where he is leaning on the roof ledge, wincing as he limps closer to Yoongi.  
“I know you’re afraid,” Jay starts in a surprisingly soft voice. It just makes Yoongi feel more vulnerable, and his head pounds from repressing his tears. “But you can’t give in to the fear. If you do, men like this win.” 

_Damn him, he’s right,_ Yoongi thinks. A storm of emotions swirl within him, stronger than they have been all night. But through the anger, fear, hopelessness, and confusion, resolve emerges. It is too late for Yoongi to step back from this, now. Detective Smith has already seen his face. What has he got to lose? _Your career, your freedom, your life._ The logical voice in Yoongi’s head lists off the potential consequences of following through with interrogating the detective, but Yoongi mentally tells himself to shut the fuck up. 

“Fine,” Yoongi relents. “Let me go get a mask.” 

He pretends not to acknowledge it, but as he heads back inside, he catches sight of Jay smiling at him. 

It is nearing five in the morning when Detective Smith starts to show signs of waking. His breathing pattern changes, and his fingers twitch. The man’s hands have been suspended above him for quite some time, and surely his shoulders must be aching, but if he is somehow connected to kidnapping children and trafficking them, Yoongi thinks the punishment is only fair. If Jay is wrong, though, and the two of them are committing a felony, well, that’s why Yoongi is wearing a white hoodie and medical mask. 

The detective flinches when his eyes open. He probably has a killer headache. The blood on his face is halfway dry, by now. Detective Smith looks up at his hands, expression calculating. Then he looks across at Yoongi and Jay. Yoongi tries not to outwardly show his nerves, because they’re supposed to look intimidating. Jay stalks menacingly slowly towards Detective Smith, and fear flickers across the man’s face for a brief second. Yoongi isn’t sure if Jay can tell that the man is scared, maybe it is obvious by the scent of sweat or something.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Jay says, his voice low. “I am going to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer them. If you try to lie to me, I will know, and I will be unhappy.” 

His words are simple, yet biting. A shiver crawls up Yoongi’s spine, and it isn’t from the chilly weather. Detective Smith meets Jay’s masked gaze head on, his pupils blown wide so that it is hard to tell when they end and his dark brown irises begin. Jay steps closer to the detective, right in his face, and completely blocks Yoongi’s view of the man. 

“Where is the boy?” Jay demands.

“He’s dead,” Detective Smith replies apathetically. He speaks in a Russian accent, all traces of his Brooklyn drawl gone completely. 

Jay lands an unforgiving blow to the side of Detective Smith’s head. He probably isn’t actually a Detective, Yoongi realizes. Smith reels back from the force of the punch, but his bound hands don’t let him go far, and he swings back into place. His breathing has become heavier from the pain. 

“This is what unhappiness looks like,” deadpans Jay. “I will ask again. Where. Is. The boy?” 

“Why do you care? If he’s not dead yet, he will be soon,” Smith answers smugly. 

“Why did you take him?” 

“We figured you’d come running. Kill you, then sell the kid, just like all the others.” 

As Smith goes on, Yoongi feels anger and disgust rise up within him. He assumes Jay is feeling much the same, based off of the vigilante’s taut shoulders and clenched fists. Yoongi flinches back in surprise as Jay punches Smith straight on. The man’s head snaps back and he groans.

Smith drops his head back to his chest, spitting blood off to the side. “I was telling the truth on that one,” he whines. 

Holding the offending fist, Jay breathes in deeply and clutches his ribs. Right, he is still very much injured. He really should not be exerting his body so much. Yoongi knows this, but now isn’t the time to remind the vigilante of that fact. Jay won’t listen to him, anyway. Still, Yoongi takes a few steps closer to the arguing pair of men, just in case he is needed for damage control. 

“I know,” Jay huffs out, forcing himself to straighten.

At this angle, Yoongi can now see Smith’s face clearly, his view no longer obscured by Jay’s body. Smith glances briefly at Yoongi, and the nurse’s heart skips a beat when the man smiles at him with blood-smeared teeth.

“We really got you good, didn’t we?” Smith sneers at Jay. 

“Who do you sell the kids to?” Jay demands, not giving in to Smith’s cajoling. 

Smith shrugs as best as his bound arms will allow. “I don’t know. Whoever has the money.” 

“Where is the boy?” Jay repeats. He sounds winded. 

Once again, Smith does not give a straight answer. He deflects, responding, “So what? You find the boy and take him home. We’ll take another. Kill me and somebody will take my place.” He looks at Yoongi again, and the nurse glowers at him. “As long as people keep buying, we’ll be selling.”

It is clear that neither Smith nor Jay are going to budge. Smith has probably been trained to withstand torture when being interrogated. Jay is too determined to give up on anything, as far as Yoongi can tell. As Jay pulls Smith’s head up by the hair, reeling back his fist to land another hit, Yoongi finally speaks. If punches won’t phase this guy, then maybe something a little more intense will. 

“Try stabbing him in his trigeminal nerve,” Yoongi suggests quickly. Jay tilts his head towards him slightly, pausing in his movements. Yoongi reaches into the vigilante’s pocket and retrieves the paring knife that the vigilante had stowed away earlier in the night. He guides the handle into Jay’s hand, who then wraps his fingers around the kitchen utensil-turned-weapon. 

“Where is it?” Jay asks. 

Placing his hand over Jay’s masked left eye, Yoongi runs his thumb along the soft part of Jay’s eyelid just under his brow bone. Jay matches Yoongi’s movements with his own thumb on Smith’s left eye. “Go in through here, right above the eye,” Yoongi guides. As he continues, Smith starts to fidget anxiously. “That’s the supraorbital foramen. You want to go in right under there.” 

Yoongi steps away again, and Jay raises the knife to Smith’s face. The man starts to thrash, clenching his jaw with his gaze glued to the blade of the knife. It shines in the moonlight. Jay steadies Smith’s head with his other hand, pressing the tip of the knife into the man’s eye socket. 

“Hold still, I've never done this before,” Jay instructs. The dryness of the joke would at any other time make Yoongi laugh, but given that he is aiding someone in torturing another, the nurse remains stoic. 

Jay pauses just before the knife pierces Smith’s skin. He turns to Yoongi. “How will I know when I’ve found it?” he asks.

“He’ll tell you,” Yoongi responds ominously. 

Nodding, Jay turns back to Smith. He presses onward, and Yoongi tenses for what is about to come. Smith starts screaming immediately, and blood trickles down his eye. The man struggles wildly, trying to escape Jay’s unforgiving grip. Swallowing in an attempt to make his mouth less dry, Yoongi hugs himself tightly. 

He is grateful that he doesn’t have a phobia of blood, and that his job mostly desensitizes him from one’s screams of pain. Otherwise, he might have thrown up by now. He has to remind himself that Smith is a terrible person that has ruined lives and exploited innocent children. He deserves this. 

As Smith’s screams increase in pitch, Jay covers his mouth to muffle him. It wouldn’t be good to wake the neighbors, alerting someone else of their definitely illegal activities. After a moment, Jay yanks the knife back, and it comes free of Smith’s eye. The man’s screams cut off, but heaving sobs come out in their place. Smith’s left eye is now covered in blood, coloring his tears a deep red that look almost black in the early morning. 

“You’re right, what you said earlier,” Jay addresses Smith, his tone even and calm. “I kill you, and somebody takes your place. But they’ll end up back here like you, and sooner or later one of them is going to tell me what I need to know.” 

Jay climbs two rungs up onto the ladder next to the scaffolding that Smith is tied to. He cuts the rope connected to it, then jumps down and tosses Smith over his shoulder. Yoongi watches apprehensively as the vigilante storms over to the roof ledge. This part of the plan wasn’t discussed. He follows Jay, hands raised placatingly, but Jay’s back is to him. The vigilante heaves Smith’s top half over the ledge, so that the man is hanging halfway off of the roof. 

Jay grips the front of Smith’s shirt. “Listen to me, because this is important,” he shushes Smith’s fearful and pained whimpering. Continuing in a low, nearly emotionless voice, he says, “I need you to know why I’m hurting you. It’s not just the boy. I’m doing this because I enjoy it.” 

“Nonono, please!” Smith yelps, at mercy to Jay’s hold which is the only thing keeping him from falling. “I’ll tell you where the boy is!”

“Where? Where is he?!” Jay snarls in Smith’s face, hanging more of the man’s body off the ledge.

Through petrified sobs, Smith admits, “Underneath Troika Restaurant. Eleventh and forty-fourth!” 

Yoongi thinks that’s it. Smith fessed up, and now Jay will pull him back to the safety of the rooftop. He’ll probably knock the fake detective unconscious again, and maybe he’ll drag Smith to the nearest police station. Yoongi is wrong. Instead, Jay throws Smith off of the roof, and the man flails as he falls. Yoongi screams, running to look over the ledge just in time to see Smith land inside the same dumpster that Jay had been found in earlier tonight. 

“Don’t worry,” Jay says, turning away from where Yongi is staring. The vigilante’s shoulders slump as he leans his weight against the rooftop ledge, and he takes deep, steadying breaths. 

Panicked, and feeling utterly claustrophobic all of a sudden in his hoodie and mask getup, Yoongi removes his coverings in a hurry. Bile rushes up his throat as he stares down at Smith’s still figure so many stories below. How can Jay be so unbothered by what he has just done? Did Yoongi side with the wrong person, after all? 

“Is he dead?” Yoongi demands, turning to Jay. 

Jay is limping away, but stops at Yoongi’s question. He tilts his head for the nth time tonight, taking a moment to reply. “He’ll live.” 

He continues walking away, and Yoongi follows him. His urge to throw up subsides when Jay dissuades his fear that Smith has just been murdered right before his eyes. The two start making their way to the rooftop door. 

“You need to take your things and leave. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going,” Jay tells him. 

“What are you talking about?” Yoongi asks as they start descending the stairs. The sudden warmth from the apartment complex heater compared to the crisp air outdoors causes a sweat to break out across Yoongi’s forehead. 

“When he wakes up, he’ll be back. And he won’t be alone next time,” Jay explains. 

“But he didn’t see my face!” Yoongi insists, holding up his medical mask in a useless gesture. 

They get back to Yoongi’s apartment, and the nurse shuts and locks the door behind them. Jay doesn’t sit down, instead he heads straight for the window of the living room. “That was just to scare him. He knew you were lying when you answered your door.” Jay staggers and trips, his body finally caving under his injuries. 

Yoongi rushes over to support his weight, and for once Jay allows it. After a moment, he makes a gesture signaling that it is alright for Yoongi to release him. The nurse does so, albeit unhappily. 

“You need to rest.” 

“Later. Do you have somewhere you can go?” Jay switches the conversation back to the topic at hand. 

Shit. Yoongi has really dug himself a hole with this one. It is way past five in the morning, he has just participated in who knows how many crimes with a nameless vigilante, and now he has to run and hide from the Russian mob. How is this his life? 

“I’ll figure it out,” Yoongi sighs. 

“Well when you do, text me the address. I’m going to give you the number of my burner phone just in case you need me.” Jay pauses, and one corner of his mouth ticks up in an exhausted smile. “Plus, I figure that after I’m done tonight, I might need some help getting patched up.”

Yoongi laughs a little hysterically at Jay’s words. How does this guy exist? How does he stay alive despite having zero regard for his own health and safety? Nonetheless, Yoongi agrees, and picks his cell phone up from where he left it on the coffee table. Jay rambles off his number, and Yoongi adds it to a new contact. 

Jay pushes up the glass window that leads out to the fire escape, heaving one leg over the sill. Yoongi is unsure what possesses him to say it, but before the vigilante can leave for good, he calls out, “Wait! What name should I put as your contact?” 

He doesn’t really expect Jay to answer. Part of him thinks that Jay will just smirk mysteriously and run off without another word, never to be seen by Yoongi again. That is the more hopeless romantic side of him, though. He is mildly surprised when Jay steps back into the apartment, limping to stand close to him. Jay places a gentle hand on Yoongi’s shoulder. 

“My name is Hoseok,” Jay replies. Then, in whispered Korean, he says, “Thank you for everything, Yoongi.” 

Instead of processing what just occurred, Yoongi’s brain supplies him with the knowledge that the two of them are close enough together that if they were in a movie, they’d be kissing by now. Just like in one of those ridiculous action films, where the hero leaves one last fleeting kiss on the damsel’s lips before running off to save the world. Of course, none of that happens. Instead, ~~Jay~~ Hoseok turns away and exits through the window for real this time. He makes his way stealthily down the fire escape and onto the ground, then hurries off. 

Yoongi watches in silence as Hoseok’s black-clad figure retreats, right up until the vigilante disappears into the shadows. Then, he shuts the window, and heads into his bedroom to start packing.

**Author's Note:**

> I did a lot of research into medical procedures to write this, but it’s still probably got some errors. Either way, here is some vocabulary in case you’re curious!
> 
> Bore Needle: A needle with a hole in its center  
> Trypanophobia: The fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles.  
> Trigeminal nerve: The largest of the 12 cranial nerves, supplying sensations to the face, mucous membranes, and other structures of the head.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this! Leave a comment if you’d like, or send me a message on CuriousCat @yo__onkoo . I love getting feedback from all of you!


End file.
